Rep. Larsen needs to explain contradiction between statement and facts

You write the current crisis has been caused by “regulation and oversight the Bush administration has failed to provide.” Yet in 2003, President Bush asked Congress to create a new agency to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored agencies whose catastrophic practices triggered the current crisis. Two years later, the Bush administration asked Congress to enact the Federal Housing Enterprise Reform Act of 2005.

September 30, 2008 3:15 pm

An open letter to Rep. Rick Larsen

Dear Congressman Larsen,

I simply cannot understand your Sept. 29 statement on the financial rescue package that failed to pass that day in the House of Representatives.

You write the current crisis has been caused by “regulation and oversight the Bush administration has failed to provide.”

Yet in 2003, President Bush asked Congress to create a new agency to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored agencies whose catastrophic practices triggered the current crisis. Two years later, the Bush administration asked Congress to enact the Federal Housing Enterprise Reform Act of 2005.

Both these steps were taken by the president precisely to avoid what’s now happened — and both were defeated in Congress by members of your Democratic Party.

When your busy schedule permits, will you please provide documentation of the positions you took on both these legislative initiatives? And, in a broader sense, will you please explain the total, thoroughly documented contradiction between your Sept. 29 statement and the facts?

Respectfully yours,

Herb Meyer
Friday Harbor